Eagledad

In 1993, I was introduced by a friend to her friend, the regional gay activist. In a brief discussion about the BSA, he said they were taking down the organization because of it's moral ideals that are contrary to the modern culture. I thought the guy was nuts at the time. Now, I understand. I feel sorry for the future families who will miss out on the scouting program that my dad, my sons and I got to experience. While is was a values program, it didn't have any foothold in the political nature. Activism has changed that. I'm feeling especially sorry for the more liberal families that would enjoy even today's program because I can see that Scouting is becoming more projected as a conservative program. In this political climate, I'm am not sure that scouting can ever appeal as a non political program ever again. Barry

So true. The mother of a 14 year old scout told me that her 17 year old son went on a high school field outing and the forecast was lots of rain. The 17 year old went and asked the 14 year old how to dress for the outing. The 14 year old couldn't figure out the big deal. National may now be forced to do that very thing. I might be interested in getting my grandkids into that program. Barry

That may be more profound that we realize. Our troop started out with heavy patrol boxes that required four scouts to carry from the trailer to the campsite. When we decided to become a dedicated backpacking troop (meaning carry all gear into camp with personal packs), we decided to make the switch over 6 month period. We thought the scouts would have a hard time getting away from the patrol boxes. Boy were we wrong. None of the six patrols took a patrol box ever again after the decision was made. We became an instant back packing troop, well except for the adults. Patrol Boxes were "work" in just about every aspect of the word. Camping out of the back pack was fun because it was basic. Patrols liked backpacking so long as they were moving to new camps. But, the dreaded hiking without gear (5 mile hike) or coming back to the same camp with gear as we often did for shake downs was not considered fun. Camping is fun if it isn't work. But only the scouts could define what is and isn't work. Barry

I agree. I polled our older scouts (14 and older) at the height of our troop program as to why they liked our troop, less than 25% said it was for the activities side of the program. First on their list was hanging out with their friends. I believe there was more to that because what would make our program more attractive than other Troops if it were really only about hanging out with friends. At the time, we had more age 14 and older scouts than any other troop or Venturing program unit in the council. But that is still a pretty awakening statistic. Barry

Sadly, this is basically the model of the majority troops. I call them 1st Class troops because they do is 1st Class requirements type of program. The older scouts get bored because after surviving 3 years of following a 1st class type program, they are expected to repeat their experience as the leaders of the same program designed for the younger scouts. It's is what many adults call a babysitting program. Ironically, it's the program they made and support, but don't understand how limits scout maturity. A troop that focuses on activities that challenges all levels of maturity and experiences are the programs where older scouts enjoy mentoring younger scouts while still enjoying challenging mature activities. Barry

This used to be the expectation of Explorers before it was pushed as Troop older scout program. I know my scuba Explorers was very much a higher maturity experience. I grew up a lot in that program. I think what has to change is first get rid of the Troop Venture Patrol program and then bring back Explorers in the context of specific sponsors who associate to the specific theme like Law Enforcement, Rescue, Emergency care, Aviation and so forth. Leave the general outdoor adventure activities like backpacking and canoeing to the Venturing program for troop programs. Barry

I kind of like that idea. A large group of adults (50/50 men and women) become scouters for their own personal adventure. Right or wrong, there are A LOT of them. Wood Badge was a natural temptation for these adults because it was an adult oriented honor society that doesn't fit with the unit level volunteerism. But, as a volunteer corp with the prestige of outdoors expertise with the actions of selfless noble service, it might have an attraction for adults that would keep them out of the scouts way. Hmm, thinking, thinking. Barry

Hmm, Actually my comments were more towards the older scouts attitude of babysitting, but I do also believe advancement or Eagle heavy programs also drive a lot of older scouts out. I found that most Eagle heavy type programs have an average older scout age of 14. Now I can't say how girl troops fit with my observations of boys, there are a lot of unknown variables there including that girls are different than boys. But I can say that less than 5 percent of the scouts in my troop were specifically in it for the Eagle. And, if the Eagle was the primary motivation, they eventually left for another troop. That being said, we averaged one Eagle every 2.5 months. You might find it interesting that 3 out of 4 new Venturing Crews are started by Troop leaders who need a program to keep their older scouts. AND, 3 out of 5 of Venturing crews close up shop just after 3.5 years. The crews that last the longest typically have no affiliation with a troop. Crews affiliated with troops that are successful typically require the Venturing age scouts stay involved at the troop level. That included the Venturing girls even before girls were accepted into troops. That Scouts stay in the programs mainly for the fun is really a myth. Scouts typically stay in their unit because of the way program they feel about themselves as a scout. Sure, the fun factor has a lot of drive in the beginning, but let's face it, after 30 camp outs, can number 31 really be the driver to come to next weeks meeting. The feeling of how they like themselves in the troop typically comes from the accomplishments of responsibility (character growth), not adventure or advancement. Responsibility in the troop typically includes some aspect of role modeling to other scouts. Camping and advancement are just tools for building character, they are not the goals of the program. Barry

My apologies, I wasn't trying to be personal, I meant to talk in generalities for the many different readers of the posts. Ah! You just made it personal. And I can say with confidence that any unit where babysitting is a word to describe their program, THEY ARE DOING IT WRONG. And please, I'm not saying I know your program, but I worked with a lot of units where they started with this attitude and I helped them to see where the program needed to change. Babysitting is an attitude generated by adults, not youth. Every unit has the same basic parents, so how do some units get past a program where they believe older scouts don't want to hang around younger scouts because the All Mighty Eagle is the main thing. Well, in short, the adult leaders learn focus less on scout out comes and more on turning responsibility into fun actions for all the scouts. We older scouters call it, youth run and patrol method. Knowledge and expertise often appears as arrogance to those with limited experience. Where the two meet is through humility. You can trust that I don't usually show such confidence in areas of scouting where I have limited experience, such as managing a Venturing unit. But I have a great deal of knowledge in how scouts of the troop are motivated and discouraged in the troop program. My knowledge wasn't developed just from my successes, but my many failures as well. So, while the program moves forward (forward?) from today's challenges, I will still be here to posts on the bigger picture of building leaders of integrity and citizens of character. Because that goal doesn't change with time. Barry

Who is babysitting who! Doesn't matter, if babysitting is a word being used in your unit, they they are doing it wrong. And why would girls leave venturing for troops? If the boys are leaving because of babysitting, what is the attraction for girls? The unit leaders are doing it wrong. Chuckhardt has never hid his Troop's purpose of earning Eagles, but I know from experience that once the shininess of the Eagle wears off, the program better have something else. That something else is where the BSA will live or die in the future. Our troop when I was an active leader had the largest group of scouts 14 and older in the council. We were approached several times by council to start a Venturing Crew, but that didn't make sense to us. If our troop was so successful without venturing, why risk dividing up the program. Our formula for success was adventure. Besides our fun monthly camp outs, our troop averaged 6 High Adventure Outtings a year. And there were no age requirements or limitations. If an 11 year old was mentally and physically capable, they were welcome to the crew. That's not to say we didn't have Eagles, our troop averaged an Eagle every 2.5 months. But advancement was the scout's responsibility. The secret to our scouts earning Eagles was keeping them around until they were 18. The average age our scouts passed their EBOR was 16.5 years old. If a scout hangs around long enough, they trip over the Eagle. We had a program were scouts wanted to come and hang out. It was program where young adults were respected as young adults and they like that.

It might be good press, but it also shows how Boy Scouts is viewed more as a youth after school program instead of a Community Service organization. We saw the same thing here in Oklahoma City recently after a tornado tore up the south part of town. Our council, which is accustom to organizing assistance was told to stay out by FEMA. I'm told it's a litigation issue. Scouts are still allowed to help in smaller towns, but it's a challenge in the bigger city. There are still ways the scouts can help, but it wasn't that long ago that we were considered an integral part in the community disaster relief. Beary

Goodness I've tried. I brought up discussions in my leaders courses and even created a council leaders course specifically on the subject of giving scouts the trust to screw up because they develop character from the decisions. A couple of adults come back and tell me stories of how they changed their program from the course, but in general I found the loud crickets in the background. I believe our parental instinct to protect our kids is greater than the wisdom of letting youth learn by their own efforts. The reason that scouting carries on with adults who have a youth scouting experience isn't so much those adults value the growth from making independent decisions, they are simply doing the easy thing of continuing the scouting experience of their youth. That certainly was the case for me. I do believe if National took and interest of showing the relationship between giving scouts independence to make decisions and the resulting growth, more adults would take interest. But, in these times of adding more adult participation for youth protection, I don't see that happening. In fact, the membership changes over last few years are bringing in even more adults without a youth scouting experience, which is making the problem more complex. Eventually this program will become saturated enough with adults who have a youth scouting experience to carry tradition forward, but what kind of program did they experience. I'm confident it won't be much like the traditional program that my dad, me and my son's experienced. Is it a program that my son's will want for my grand kids? Barry

Something has to be said, the challenge is who is going to say it. Barry

I came from the 70's so I didn't see the effects of the changes. For me, the first obvious sign of the end was the creation of the New Scout Patrols. What appears small created a ripple effect that forced adults to become more intrusive in just about all the personal decisions scouts made in planning their activities. The intrusiveness was doubled down with the implementation of the First Class in First Year program. Equally, if not greater, to the negative program effects from the New Scout Patrols was the unforeseen effects of a degrading Patrol Method concept after National changed the adult membership to include female troop leaders. The program killer had nothing do with gender, but instead the issue was experience. Or more directly, lack of a youth scouting experience. The massive influx of inexperienced adults forced incomprehension into a program that at that time relied heavily on adult leaders with a youth scouting experience. Even National was shocked at the sudden trend away from a boy lead program. They attempted to bring some balance with all new training syllabuses in 2000, but evidence shows that nothing replaces experience for continuing the concept of giving youth independence for making bad decisions with the intention of developing good character? Barry

Eagle94 says it so eloquently, if the adults insure scouts learn and experience the skills, those adults will watch their scouts grow to be the best kind of scouts. Instead of taking responsibility for the scouts ranks, take responsibility for scouts developing their skills of self-independence and ethical decision making. Take pride in watching them grow into responsible citizens, or as I like to say, citizens of character and leaders of integrity. I admit that not taking responsibility for each of scout's personal choices in the program was a challenge that I had to practice everyday. We all have a vision in our head of the ideal boy scout and temptation tends to steer us toward pushing scouts that direction. But in reality, the program is intended for each scout to make decisions for his dream of being a scout. In that bigger vision of building adults who use the scout oath and law to make moral and ethical decisions, we find that advancement is a small by product of the scouts personal experiences in their lives, not ours. But, I found that when I focused more to enhancing their experiences by pushing a fun adventurous program, the scouts eventually found more ambition toward ranks. Getting adults to look at the troop program as a resource for the scout's personal vision of their experience is challenging, and maybe one way to start in that direction is ask the adults to think of ways to enhance the other 7 Methods so as to trust that the scout will eventually include advancement in their vision. If the program becomes more exciting by supercharging Patrol Method and Camping, the scouts focus more energy in the troop program over other outside activities because not only is the troop fun, it's gives the scout some self-satisfaction from the accomplishments of the program challenges. I've seen it work exactly like that, but developing that kind of program is even more challenging for the adults because they have to be creative enough to provide that kind of program without getting in the way of the scouts running the program. It's a test and practice of the Adult Association Method within the context of a Scout run patrol method program. Adult Method in that context is hard and requires humility and practice. Sorry, this went way off, but I found Eagle94's post exciting and wanted to support him. Barry

Thanks all, good discussion. I think of Aims and Methods as instruction or a map for scouters. You basically said the same with, "The methods are how we achieve the aims. This creates a very simple litmus test for us.". The goal of building ethical and moral decision makers is a broad idealistic vision. Aims and Methods is the instructional path. I have always felt the Methods are the scouts' responsibilities'. And the Aims are the Adults responsibilities. Yep, good post. EXACTLY! This is how I taught all adults to try and think about working with scouts. If a scout's action or activity doesn't work toward the Aims, I found myself dropping it out of the program. And, if that action or activity does work toward the Aims, how can we enhance it to be even more productive toward growth? Also, once the adult starts thinking about how Methods work toward Aims. for example Uniform, they can explain it's value more clearly to anyone in simple terms and justify their program. Explaining the program in simple terms became very important when I was teaching Scoutmaster Fundamentals. Everything scouting comes up with new adult volunteers. Like Uniform. It's more than just looking sharp right? I've mentioned that Uniform for me was more than just wearing the uniform, but what values does just wearing the uniform do for a scout. We start with making the right or wrong decision to wear the uniform properly. Just the decision of how to wear the uniform starts a scout off in the right or wrong direction of making good decisions. What else? The Uniform starts every scout equal by looking the same in the context of Scouting by not segregating the rich from the poor or educated from the less educated. On the other hand, the uniform give the scout individuality within the context of scouting with badges that identify a scouts rank, patrol, troop and district. The scout may be a member of OA and have advanced training. A scout can truly set them-self apart in uniformity simply by wearing a uniform. Leadership is hard for adults to get their heads around. Leadership has always been marketed as a goal of scouting, but most adults can't really define growth in leadership except for the documented Positions of Responsibility. Still, leadership was so values as a trait of scouting that the Army specifically looked for Boy Scouts for the invasion Normandy because the planners knew that so many soldiers would be injured of killed that they needed soldiers who could quickly step up. Is stepping up really a leadership trait? Well let's see. We struggle today with leadership development because most of the adult volunteers today's don't have any scouting experience to set the expectation. In the past, most adult leaders where scouts themselves. So without thought, patrols had hierarchies of more experienced guiding the less experienced and more ambitious setting a different path than less ambitious. Leadership was more about role models using servant direction to build a functional performing patrol during scouting activities. The patrol as a whole or team took more responsibility building experienced skilled scouts out of all their members. For most scouts, rank was a byproduct of how well the patrol used skills during their activities. Patrol guidance, training, coaching were learned by the young scouts from the role model older scouts. Not in classes, but in the actions of patrol activities. Outside leadership training wasn't required because skills were learned and experienced in the patrol and handed over from generation to generation. Those skills continued into the adult ranks, so leadership wasn't really a thing, it was a part of the whole thing of being a scout. But, adults today struggle to push a patrol to become an independent functional performing team unit. Without seeing for themselves, parents just plain lack the trust of youth. The adults tend to drive activities that make sense to them, like advancement. I even struggled in my own troop to push First-aid month to be about skills, not advancement. Plan a fun month of first-aid development, and let the scout find someone to sigh off requirements, if he desires. Scouts struggle with leadership development today because the adults themselves don't know how to define leadership development in the Patrol Method world. Adults get hung up on elections for leadership, but elections have nothing to do with leadership development. I taught and pushed the idea that if the adult believes training is required for leadership development, then they don't know how to do leadership development. I honestly don't know if leadership development can be fixed because the ratio of non experienced scouters is increasing. Exactly. Both my sons had no aspirations of being leaders, yet they were well respected, and called leaders, because of the areas they loved doing. I taught that scouting is all about developing confidence in making the next step. Whether it be camping skills or working with others, confidence comes off as leadership because it takes on the dark unknown challenges in stride. Confidence makes us "can do" type people, and "can-do" people are pro-actionary, which has the appearance of leadership. Confidence takes what a person knows and applies it to what they don't know to plan the next step forward. When the planners of the invasion wanted Boy Scouts, they were really wanting soldiers with confidence to move forward even when confronted with unspeakable challenges of battle. They saw confidence as leadership. And they believe that leadership (confidence) came from the experience of scouting. I agree that Fun seems to be a harder challenge in scouting, and I believe it goes back to inexperienced adults. They don't have the experience of why standing by a simple campfire can be fun. A hike or fishing or building a fire. All of a sudden, these are activities of advancing, because as I said, advancing is a simple methodical method of pushing a scouting program. A new SM called me once to ask for program ideas because his scouts had run out of activities for campouts. He had mentioned that their themes were advancement driven. I suggested one to two hours of free time before dinner. He was aghast. "FREE TIME. I can imagine the trouble they will get into". He couldn't consider that scout created fun should be part of the program. he was never a scout himself. I have personally experienced the challenge of turning adults leaders minds to building a fun activity and letting the scout figure out if they want to use that experience in their advancement quest. I had a meeting at my house one year to organize a summer camp team for getting our troop of 100 scouts to summer camp. One mother stepped up to lead the group because she was angry that her son didn't advance at camp the previous year. Her 11 year old son had so much fun with all the camp activities that getting requirements signed off just wasn't on his mind. She had a plan to advance every scout this next summer. I spent the next 30 minutes of explaining why her son did it right because he had fun. Her son Eagled 3 years later when other proprieties became important. My comments appear to be anti-advancement, but they are not. My concern is how the adult side is loosing the understanding of A Game with a Purpose. For me, if we let the scout's take responsibility for the Methods, then the adults can focus on the performance of the Aims. The only real advice scouts need with Methods is to use them. Don't leave any out. On the other hand, if the adults don't see growth in character, citizenship, fitness, and leadership (confidence), then they should evaluate the program and make changes. I believe the adults in a high performing program are always making changes. Always tweaking and polishing. Nothing stays the same because different personalities of patrols rotate through the program. As a result, the program requires changed to fit the individuality of application of methods. More camping, less camping? More Patrol Method, less patrol Method? Uniform? leadership, is there any? On and on. Fun and growth, fun and growth, fun and growth. And not that the scouts shouldn't be included in those decisions. They must be part of the team. One year I approached the PLC for a change I felt would improve our program. I found the better performing troops tend to elect SPLs for 1 year terms. Seems that 6 months is just enough time to figure out how to lead a troop but not use the experience to benefit it. So, I proposed we give 1 year SPL elections a test. I was clearly voted down by the PLC. Oh well, it was their loss. LOL. Good discussion, I hope we get more on the makings of Aims and Methods. Barry

Once every few years many of us like to have a philsophical discussion of Aims and Methods. It's not about correcting the current Aims and Methods, it's really more personal perspectives of how we view them as goals and tools. I always find some interesting approaches that I hadn't thought about before. I start just to give an idea of the direction of the discussion. First lets list the Aims (goals for the adults to guard the program), and Methods ( Scouts actions for reaching the Aims (goals)). Aims: Character Development Leadership Development Citizenship Training Personal fitness Methods: Scouting Ideals. Patrols. Outdoors. Advancement. Personal Growth. Adult Association. Leadership Development. Uniform I have over the years developed a style of using the Methods of scouting ideals, Patrols, outdoors and adult association to reach the goals of advancement, personal growth, leadership development and uniform for reaching the Aims. Personal growth is a direct result of my four choice Methods and the major contributor toward the Aims. Leadership Development is a natural development of participation with the patrol. I found leadership role modeling does more for leadership growth than any other type of development. For me, Uniform is not only how the scout presents themselves in the patrol, but also how they fit as part of the flow of the team. Uniformity is both a personal and team responsibility and requires constant practice for developing a functional team, or patrol. In fact, I would say that Uniform, or team uniformity, is the main contributor to leadership development. Uniformity is also an equal partner with leadership for the most challenging decisions scouts make during their scouting career. I will also note that these are decisions that challenge adults the most and more often than not take the responsibility off the scouts to ease their own struggle. Advancement is also the direct result of Patrol activities. Making it a Method doesn't make sense to me since the patrol activities should be practicing most of the requirements in the woods. I find it interesting that National added Leadership Development to the Aims last year. Putting Leadership development in both the Aims and Methods proves to me that they don't understand how Scouting works for personal growth. THAT BEING SAID, I have always felt that Leadership Development should be a goal, not a method. Making it a Method forces the adults to make the leadership proactive when development is a reactionary part of scouting. I could be talked into taking Scouting Ideals out of my Methods list because they are really tools for the scouts to use in their actions during scouting activities. Cooking is another tool used in Patrol method and we don't require it as a method, why not think of scouting ideals the same. Well, probably because if we don't focus on them somewhere, the adults will loose sight of them in personal growth. So, that is the starting place of the discussion. I hope you all will consider the discussion and give an opinion. There is not right or wrong answer. Just a personal philosophical opinion of how you see Aims and Methods working toward the goals of building ethical decision makers. And, I hope the discussion is food for thought with the newer leaders struggling to develop a vision for their scouts. I know a discussion similar to this gave me some direction in my leadership style. Barry

This is kind of interesting in many different ways. I wonder if he was ever a scout. https://www.foxnews.com/us/coronavirus-military-cadet-pennsylvania-tent

I've told this story before, But I enjoy telling it, so I beg for your patience. Our older scouts spent a month planning a simulated car wreck on a road at one of our local camps. The did research for making fake blood, bones and exposed muscle tissue to add the realism. Our troop was camping at the camp that month and SM decided the troop should hike in the last mile where they hiked into the simulated wreck. It was interesting to watch the scouts; at first they weren't sure what to do, so they walked slowly up to the wreck studying the situation, which is what first responders are supposed to do so they don't walk into danger. But for the scouts, it was more of preparing to see the worst. They finally built the courage to walk fast analyse the scene. It only took them a few seconds to realize it was the older scouts in their troop and the scene was fake. The older scouts encourage them to try and they did pretty good. Then the older scouts reviewed how the did and how they could do better next time. It was fun. Three months later the troop was driving to summer camp and happened on a SUV that rolled over just seconds before we got there on the rain slick road. Three of our adults where doctors, so they took over checking the driver and passenger (who worked at the camp where we were going). Because we were afraid another car was going to come around the curve and loose control on the slick road, we moved everyone else back about 100 yards. I'll never forget the scout who looked at me and said " you gave us all that training and now you won't let us work". He was serious, and I felt bad about it. It was hard to explain that his safety came first. During my 10 years with the troop, we had several scouts and past scouts make the front pages for giving first responder aid at an accident scene. One past scout (Eagle), resuscitated a toddler who was found unconscious in a pool. Our troop always planned a month worth of activities specifically on first-aid. You just never know what little bit of information learned during scout training will be a life changing recovery for someone in an accident. First aid for me as a scout was hard to learn because we never trained it realistically like simulated wreck. Adding more realism to the training has more learning impact, but it also gave the older scouts a lot of pride. They took that experience to their OA activities and camporees. Barry

One way a SM can stay in touch with the scouts is to send them a few " How Not To Start A Fire" Youtube videos. There are plenty out there and the scouts will be entertained. The SM can finish by saying, "Can't wait to show you fun and safe starting skills. See you soon". Could do the same with First Aid "Burns" and badly tied knots. Barry

As you know, there is a lot of discussion about using advancement instead of adventure as the driver scout activities. The thing is that the at the heart of it, scouting is about using adventure to motivate a youth to make decisions that guide them toward personal growth. How or why or what is dependent on the individual scout. Each has their own want from scouting that encourages them to want more from scouting. Only the adult can take that away, which happens a lot. And is the reason many of us preach ADVENTURE, NOT ADVANCEMENT! But, for some scouts, rank is their goal, their adventure to drive more into this scouting stuff. Their passion isn't to be the highest rank, but reach a rank that proves they are doing the scouting stuff. Nobody wants to squelch that passion because it's momentum. And we want to use that momentum to drive toward more adventure. See, from our perspective, the more the scout get's into the adventure, the more they are making decisions that steer them into personal growth. We just need to make sure the scout knows when they make bad decisions and how to make the next decision the right decision. That is personal growth. All that to say that you do what you need to do for the scout so that she doesn't loose momentum for adventure. And, make sure that she grows from the experience. I don't know how to advise you beyond that. But, if a scout is using 7 Methods for the adventure and Advancement just happens to benefit from the actions of other 7, I don't think scouting can get much better than that. Barry

Is that in the ILOS syllabus? Barry

You just described the forum. Barry

Hmm!. So, during this strange time of spending of lives in our homes with a computer, your suggestion is wait for an unscheduled course with a unknown staff of unknown experience to learn a few tricks that will make camping more comfortable. Sometimes I worry about you. Barry

Stuff the tent into the storage bag instead of folding and rolling because the folds can wear thin spots that leak. Stuffing doesn't have any fold spots to wear. Stuffing the tent in the backpack is easier and faster because it can be stuffed into voids around the other gear. Give the poles to your partner. They think they are getting the better part of the deal. Barry